ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author focuses on the image of Hokkaido, specifically northern Tokachi, as place of historically osculating binaries with escape and exile being prominent themes. This theoretical and historical preamble is followed by an introduction to five individuals; Sa'chan a single mother, Akinomori a retired sumo wrestler, his long-term partner Emiko, and another married couple, the Yoshidas'. Mr. Yoshida is a retired teacher and Mrs. Yoshida is a dressmaker between jobs at the time of writing. They are all members of what the author will call Kyoko's assemblage: people who are linked together in the material and ideological context of a particular place, rural Tokachi, and a specific person, Kyoko. Working as a junior high school mathematics teacher in one of the poorer areas of Osaka, Mr. Yoshida became frustrated in his thirties by the low level of attention his students were getting from a school system geared towards notions of futsu no Nihonjin no kangaekata.